No Man is an Island
by Owlieo
Summary: Continuing the story of episode 12 of season 8, "Zugzwang".
1. Chapter 1

With the gun positioned at Maeve's jugular Diane Turner screamed at FBI agent Spencer Reid, "You lied!" Although her ego allowed her to believe his words, his lips didn't lie. The kiss he returned was unconvincing, which is why she attempted to kill him, but because of their struggle over the gun was only able to hit his arm.

"I didn't, Diane, I offered you a deal and you can still take it: _me for her_. Let me take her place." Reid's training and experience allowed him to negotiate calmly, but internally he fought escalating desperation that made him want to lunge at the suspect holding the love of his life hostage just a few feet in front of him.

"_You would do that_?" she asked desperately, almost sobbing, tears streaming down her face as she continued to hold the gun on Maeve.

"Yes," he responded without hesitation.

"You would do that_ for her_!" Diane sobbed.

"Yes," Reid replied again.

Despite the terror of the situation and her tear-filled eyes, a sudden calm crossed Maeve's face as Spencer offered his life for hers.

"Thomas Merton," Maeve said locking eyes with Spencer.

"Who's Thomas Merton?" Diane panted and pressed the gun closer to Maeve's neck.

"He knows," Maeve answered. "He knows," she repeated calmly. "He's the one thing you can never take from us." Maeve knew that Spencer loved her and that everything that had just transpired was his attempt to save her life. She also believed there could be only two outcomes if Spencer gave himself up for her. In only one she would die, but in both Spencer would. She knew that the only way to guarantee his survival was to give her life for his.

Realizing that she would not get what she wanted Diane immediately raised her weapon, "No," she declared, aiming the gun at her own head, side-by-side with Maeve's.

"Wait!" Reid cried out as Diane pulled the trigger, killing herself and Maeve.

Spencer Reid's fellow agents of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, Alex Blake, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Derek Morgan, and David Rossi, looked on in horror. Equally horrified, their leader Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner felt a sudden painfully deep empathy for Reid so strong that it was as if he had been stabbed in the chest. It had only been three years since the George "The Reaper" Foyet murdered his wife Haley. They all lowered their weapons, but frozen in the shock of the scene before them they did not move.

Reid collapsed to the floor, shattered. He started to move forward on his knees towards Maeve's body, but stopped a foot away from her legs, weeping inconsolably. Aaron Hotchner stepped forward behind Reid and placed his hand comfortingly on the younger man's shoulder. His own voice edged with emotion Hotch said softly, "Go ahead, Reid."

The others gathered close as Reid knelt next to Maeve's body, reached out and lifted her right hand, encircling her slim wrist in his long fingers. Her skin was still warm as Reid pressed his fingers into her ulnar artery. As expected, she had no pulse. Reid continued to hold her hand and weep silently. He couldn't bear to look at her lifeless face with her head surrounded by a growing halo of her own blood and that of her murderer.

It was only minutes before a crowd of other agents, investigators and members of the coroner's office began to fill the room. Reid was oblivious to their presence, but his BAU colleagues knew that they had to allow the others to do their work. Hotchner nodded at JJ and Rossi, who stood closest to Reid.

JJ got down beside Reid, gently touched his shoulder above the wound on his arm and whispered, "Spence, we have to go now."

He turned to JJ, who had always been like a sister to him, his eyes shimmering and his face wet with tears, and in a barely audible rasp said, "I can't."

JJ glanced up at Rossi who immediately knelt down and took Reid's and Maeve's hands between his. In a quiet, fatherly tone he said, "Reid, you have to go, but I'll stay here with her, OK? You need to go out now." Gently he separated Reid's hand from Maeve's. Hotch stepped in and helped JJ lift Reid, who did not resist, to his feet.

Rossi stayed behind with the investigators while the other members of the BAU team ushered Reid out to the ambulance that had been waiting for him. Hotchner directed the others to give their reports of the incident, and stayed with Reid while a paramedic assessed the gunshot wound to Reid's left deltoid.

Due to a combination of the cold night air and the physical and emotional trauma Reid began to shiver violently. The paramedic retrieved a wool blanket from inside the ambulance and draped it over Reid's shoulders.

"I'm OK. I'm OK. I'm OK, " Reid repeated through his chattering teeth. His mind was racing, he couldn't concentrate, and his head was beginning to throb in rhythm with his pounding heart. Suddenly he pitched forward and vomited on the dark pavement behind the ambulance. Mortified, he turned away from Hotch and started to walk away, but was too exhausted, disoriented and anxious to go further than the other side of the ambulance. The paramedic started after him, but Hotch raised his hand motioning for him to stop and told him he'd bring Reid back. Still trembling Reid stood on the sidewalk facing away from the scene clutching the old wool blanket while he choked back sobs and tears streamed down his face.

Hotch moved in front of Reid and grasped Reid's shoulders as he said, "Reid, listen to me. I know you know that you are experiencing completely normal reactions for the victim of a very violent crime." Reid looked up and made eye contact with Hotch listening intently as he continued, "I also know that it is _much_ different to know that and to process it intellectually as a professional than to _be_…" he paused briefly so his own voice wouldn't break,"…the victim of _this_ kind of crime." Aaron Hotchner was often perceived to be reticent, some would even say cold and distant, but this case struck him so close to his own experience and with someone for whom he felt a personal, filial, responsibility that he could not just wait to allow the others to say the things that needed to be said. "Now, please, come back and sit down," he finished and directed Reid back to the open rear of the ambulance.

Of the others it was JJ who returned to Hotch and Reid first, her face etched with sorrow and concern for her colleague and friend as she watched the paramedic wrap gauze bandage tightly around Reid's upper left arm. As Hotchner walked away to give his statement JJ stood in front of Reid, who continued to shiver. When the paramedic stepped away to retrieve an IV kit, JJ reached down and pulled the blanket together in front of him, a practical and caring gesture. Reid leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her, seeking the comfort of physical contact that he learned to value more after his abduction, subsequent drug addiction and recovery, and the tragic (though temporary) loss of Agent Emily Prentiss. In her embrace Reid's shivering became less violent, but once again he began to weep and JJ hugged him tighter and willed herself not to cry too.

"Excuse me, but I need to set up this IV, and we need to get him to the hospital. A surgeon needs to close that," the paramedic said motioning towards Reid's arm. Blood had already started to seep through the bandage.

Reid and JJ broke their embrace and JJ helped Reid climb up into the back of the ambulance. As the paramedics set up the IV, pulse oximetry, and cardiac monitoring JJ stayed with him in the ambulance.

Just as the paramedics were getting ready to close the back doors of the ambulance Hotch, Blake, and Morgan approached. JJ got up to go talk to them and Reid reached up and grasped her arm. "Please don't leave me," he whispered.

She reached down and squeezed his hand, "We won't, Spence, I promise." JJ asked the paramedics to wait just a few minutes, so she could talk to the others.

At the back of the ambulance JJ told Hotch, Blake and Morgan that Reid's gunshot wound was more than just a graze and required surgical closure. They said the investigators wanted to talk to Reid, but Hotch put them off saying he was in shock and therefore in no condition to give a statement.

"Stay with him," Hotch said to JJ. She nodded and climbed back into the ambulance.


	2. Chapter 2

As he promised he would, David Rossi stayed at the crime scene. He watched the coroner and criminalists do their work, but stood back at a respectful distance. He only offered assistance when specifically asked to do so. Part of him was still processing the events that occurred before his eyes too, and part of him was deeply concerned for Spencer Reid, who was only a few years younger than his own son would have been had he lived. He looked away as the coroner moved the severely damaged side of Maeve's head into view for one of the criminalists to photograph. Rossi observed the entire process until Maeve Donovan's body was rolled out of the room on a gurney just ahead of the one carrying her killer, and then he left the building to find the rest of his team.

By that time the ambulance had taken Reid, and JJ along with him, to the hospital. Hotch, Blake and Morgan stood next to Hotch's black Chevy Suburban. "The coroner has both bodies," he said as he approached and motioned behind them. Hotch nodded and turned to see the two gurneys, loaded with body bags, being rolled into the coroner's van.

"How's Reid?" Rossi asked.

"The gunshot wound wasn't just a graze. JJ went with him to the hospital," Hotch answered.

"OK," Rossi responded, "and, _how_ _is_ _Reid_…?"

Hotch sighed, "As one might expect." He didn't need to say more.

"So, what's the plan?" Rossi asked.

Morgan's phone rang. It was Penelope Garcia, the BAU technical analyst. None of them had had a chance to call Garcia since before the tragedy. "Hey, Baby Girl," he answered. Despite the fact that none of them had called she already knew what had happened. She just wanted to touch base and ask how she could help. Morgan put her on speaker.

"The plan is," Hotch said, "right now Reid is more important than the remaining statements and follow-up left for this case. If anyone has a problem with that, you are free to go back to the office. If anyone _there_ has a problem with that, they can talk to me later. Otherwise, let's go to the hospital. Garcia, can you meet us there?"

"Sure can," she responded over Morgan's iPhone.

And with that Hotch, Rossi, Blake and Morgan climbed into Hotch's SUV and headed to the hospital.

In the ER the attending surgeon and a trauma team were already waiting for Reid's arrival. Even under the somewhat extraordinary circumstances the staff wouldn't allow JJ to accompany Reid into the trauma bay.

Standing in the hallway outside the room JJ pulled out her cell and called her husband Will at home. She told him what happened, seeing it all again in her mind's eye as she spoke. Will listened sympathetically and asked if she wanted him to find a sitter for their son Henry, so he could come to the hospital.

"No, Henry's asleep and if he wakes up one of us should be there," she said, though she wished both of them could have been there with her.

"OK, cher, call me if you need me," he said in his sweet southern drawl. "See you when you get home."

JJ had just put her phone away when a nurse came out of the trauma bay and told her that Reid was very anxious and agitated, which was resulting in a rapid heart rate and decreased oxygen saturation, and he wouldn't cooperate with their attempts to assess and treat him. The nurse said he kept asking for JJ, and they wondered if she would mind coming back into the room with the trauma team. JJ passed the nurse and pushed through the doors without waiting to be asked to follow.

She knew with one glance at Reid on the gurney in the trauma bay that he was terrified. "Hey, Spence," she said in a soothing tone not unlike one she used with Henry when he was sick.

"JJ, they want to give me drugs," he blurted, sounding both childlike and paranoid. JJ looked up at the young surgeon, who stood on the opposite side of the gurney.

"This looks like a through and through gunshot wound to the deltoid with quite a bit of bleeding, which could be from a nicked artery. I need to get him to the OR, explore the site, make sure he isn't going to slowly bleed to death and close, and this _isn't _the goddamn Civil War. I'm not going to treat him without an anesthetic and some pain control," he said, clearly irritated.

"Spence, do you mind if I talk to your doctor?" JJ asked calmly. Reid shook his head.

"Over there," she said pointing to the other side of the room, somehow managing to be sweet and commanding at the same time.

The irritated surgeon, who just wanted to treat his patient, rushed with JJ to the furthest point from Reid in the room, which JJ hoped meant Reid would not overhear what she was about to say.

She made intense, direct eye contact with the surgeon, her cornflower blue eyes flashing, as she stated quickly and emphatically, "Your patient, my colleague and friend, is an FBI agent whose girlfriend was shot to death in the head at point blank range while he stood barely three feet away begging for her stalker, kidnapper and killer to take him instead _and that was after he had already been pretty much tortured and then shot himself by the same criminal_. He also has an eidetic (perfect photographic) memory, which, in case you are not aware, means he will _never_ forget any detail of that, or this either." She paused just briefly to glance at Reid who did not seem to be able to hear her, and then continued, "_And_, he has a history of drug addiction, to dilaudid—a drug that was forced on him while he was held captive and tortured by a serial killer several years ago, which, by the way, he has overcome despite great odds. You can, _I hope_, now see why I think he deserves a little more patience from you, _plus_ I doubt he's going to bleed to death from that wound so quickly that you cannot be just a little more patient." And taking a breath she finished with, "And, I'm sure you can figure out a way to treat him that won't make his situation worse, _don't you_?"

The surgeon looked shocked. He knew that his patient was an FBI agent coming in after an incident in the field, but he did not know the tragic magnitude of the incident, nor was he made aware that the patient had a history of drug abuse. "Yes, of course," he responded and stepped away to the phone on the wall.

JJ returned to Reid's uninjured side and reached out to take his right hand, being careful not to disturb the IV. "It's OK, Spence. Don't worry. They're going to take good care of you." Reid squeezed her fingers gratefully, relaxing a little, but also feeling just a little embarrassed, because he felt so out of control.

"OK, ladies and gents," the surgeon said to the crowd in the room as he hung up the phone. "This one gets no pain meds. We're doing this with local anesthetic only; so, I've asked Dr. Paxton to come down to attempt to hypnotize the patient. He'll be here momentarily. And you, Ms… FBI Agent," he said turning towards JJ, "as long as we're being unorthodox here you need to scrub and come with us to the OR, because his vitals improved quite a bit with you in the room and all things considered, I'd like to keep it that way."


	3. Chapter 3

Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, Blake, and Garcia arrived at the hospital and were shown to a private trauma waiting room just as JJ, wearing hospital scrubs, followed the trauma team and Dr. Paxton, the psychiatrist called down to consult, into the OR.

A nurse pushed a rolling stool up next to the head of the table on which Reid was already positioned, and told JJ she could sit if she wanted. JJ sat so she was eye level with Reid, who still looked pale and frightened. Despite the mask Reid could see her reassuring smile.

On the other side of the OR Dr. Paxton and the surgeon, Dr. Ezzo, were talking, but JJ couldn't hear them and really wasn't trying to listen. She was more focused on Reid and the nurses who were removing the blood-soaked gauze from his upper left arm. Despite what she knew was his best effort to hide it JJ could tell it was painful just by watching, and she tried to help him by reminding him to breathe and offering him her hand to squeeze.

JJ almost jumped off the stool when she felt someone's hand touch her shoulder. "Excuse me, Ms…?"

She looked up at Dr. Paxton, or at least she looked up at the small portion of his face she could see between the cap and the mask he wore, and said, "Jareau, JJ."

"Could we talk to you for a minute?" he asked motioning back towards Dr. Ezzo on the other side of the OR.

Reid's eyes were closed, and he winced as the nurses pulled the last bits of gauze away from his wound. "I'll be right back," she said. He nodded, eyes still closed, and teeth gritted.

"Look, Ms. Jareau," Dr. Paxton began, "under these circumstances I do not believe hypnosis is a good choice for this patient. It can be used for pain control, but it requires a great degree of trust and a level of calm that I just don't think are achievable here."

Dr. Ezzo stated, "Even with a lot of local anesthetic what I am about to do to your friend is going to be painful. Just getting that much local anesthetic into the site would hurt like hell, and that's even if I could. And I can't really say if I could until I see what we're dealing with, which means more or less torturing him with surgical instruments..."

"What my colleague is trying to tell you, Ms. Jareau," Paxton interrupted, "is that we would like you to convince your friend to let the anesthesiologist anesthetize him for this procedure. We will ask that he not be given narcotic painkillers, but he does need to be unconscious before Dr. Ezzo starts poking around in that open wound."

"Do you understand," Ezzo asked, "if I hit a nerve and he moves serious damage could be done, damage that would almost certainly affect his career?"

JJ sighed and looked back at Reid. "OK," she said.

Settling back on the wheeled stool JJ moved as close as she could to Reid so he could clearly see her eyes. Behind the mask she exhaled, took a deep breath and then said, "They can't do this while you are awake, and it's going to hurt… _a lot_. If you are awake there is a risk that you might move and be seriously injured by accident…"

"They just don't want to be sued," he interrupted.

"No, Reid, I truly believe that they really just don't want to hurt you or injure you further. They want you to consent to be anesthetized for this procedure, and they promise, no narcotic painkillers."

Reid looked up at the overly bright OR lights, squinted, and bit his lower lip. He had a look on his face that he sometimes had when he was calculating in his head. "Talk to me, Spence," she implored.

After several minutes he responded, "OK, I'll consent."

JJ turned and nodded at the two doctors. Dr. Ezzo motioned for a nurse to get Reid to sign a consent form, and then suddenly there was a buzz of activity in the room as the anesthesiologist started to prepare Reid to be put under.

"Ms. Jareau," the nurse who had given JJ the rolling stool said as she moved the lights above Reid and concentrated the brightest beam on the surgical field, "now that he's going to be unconscious, you can't stay during the procedure."

Although it had occurred to her that she might be asked to leave at some point, JJ wished that someone had informed her of that requirement away from Reid, so she could have told him instead of having him overhear it as if he wasn't even present.

The anesthesiologist, who was watching Reid's vital signs and noticed an obvious increase in his heart rate, quickly added, "She can stay until he's out."

"JJ?" Reid nearly whispered, turning his head back to face her.

"Yes," she replied as quietly.

"Promise you'll be there when I wake up?"

"I promise. We will all be there when you wake up," she reassured him softly and sat by his side until his eyelids fluttered closed, and he drifted off.

As she was leaving the OR one of the nurses told JJ that she would find her colleagues in a private waiting room down the hall.

They were all a bit surprised when JJ entered the room wearing hospital scrubs, which she knew by their expressions and to which she responded by explaining what happened in the ER and then in the OR.

"How long do you think he'll be in there?" Morgan asked.

JJ shrugged. "They weren't exactly sure what the extent of the injury was, but I imagine it won't be too long."

"How is he?" Garcia inquired with a worried expression.

JJ made eye contact with Hotch, who she thought knew the answer to that question better than she did. "It's going to be a long time," she said, trailing off with a sigh. Then she changed the subject, "I promised him we'd all be there when he wakes up."

"And we will be," Hotch said.

"I think," Alex Blake started after a few minutes of silence, "that one of us should always be here with him until he's discharged."

"We can take turns," Garcia responded. They all agreed.

"And he's welcome to stay with me for a while after he's discharged," Rossi offered, "if he wants to, that is." JJ smiled at Rossi. They all knew Rossi had ample space in his gracious home, and Reid would certainly be well fed too as Rossi was a fantastic cook.

A few minutes later Dr. Ezzo walked into the waiting room. "Ms. Jareau," he said.

"Dr. Ezzo," she stood and introduced her colleagues to the surgeon.

"Agent Reid is lucky, at least with regard to the bullet wound," Ezzo began. "The bullet missed the major nerves and only barely nicked one of the minor arteries. It's going to be painful, especially without narcotics, but his shoulder will heal just fine. He's in recovery now."

"I told him that we'd all be there when he wakes up," JJ said somewhat sheepishly to the surgeon.

Looking around the room at the concerned expressions of his patient's colleagues he said, "We don't usually allow this many people into recovery, but exceptions can be made." He smiled at JJ. "Down the hall, the hallway to the right of the OR."


	4. Chapter 4

The PACU nurse assigned to Reid raised an eyebrow when the entire BAU team entered his recovery room, but said nothing about the posted number of allowed visitors, which was one per patient, because she had been told by one of the ER nurses what happened to her patient and his girlfriend. She thought if any patient deserved to have that rule overlooked he did.

As she closed Reid's electronic chart on the bedside workstation she said, "If you are planning to be here when he wakes up, which should be very soon, you should know that sometimes young men, especially those who are military and police personnel, react aggressively when coming out of anesthesia. While it doesn't happen frequently, it happens more often than one might imagine. _If_ it happens he will not be able to control himself, and he could hurt one of you or himself, so if for some reason I am not in the room when he wakes up please press the button," she held up the call button, "and be careful."

Reid appeared to be peacefully asleep. His shoulder was bandaged and he still had an IV in the top of his right hand. His bloodstained, bullet-holed shirt had been replaced with a standard issue hospital gown, and he was covered snugly with several warmed blankets. Someone had even tucked his hair behind his ears, away from his face.

"Don't worry," Reid, whose eyes were still closed, said groggily, "I'm not going to hit anyone."

"Hey, Spence, everyone is here, as promised," JJ said.

"Even me," Garcia added nervously and a little overly cheerily.

"Well, it doesn't always happen," the nurse said as she checked his vital signs. "On a scale of zero to ten, where zero is no pain and ten is the worst pain you've ever felt, what is your level of pain?"

"That's irrelevant," he answered, this time opening his eyes.

"Mr. Reid," she began sternly.

"Dr. Reid," Hotch corrected with a slight smile.

"_Dr_. Reid, I have to record your level of pain in your chart, because it's my job," she finished.

"It's really such an arbitrary and subjective assessment," he asserted in a more characteristically rapid cadence and then he tried to sit up. His face blanched slightly and he settled back against the pillows. "Seven, I'd say about a seven."

"Mmhmm," she responded. She still couldn't believe that no one had convinced the patient to at least accept _some _analgesia stronger than the acetaminophen she would be able to offer him later.

"Reid, do you know where you are?" Rossi asked sitting on the edge of the bed at Reid's right side.

Reid looked around the room, at each of his other colleagues, and then back at Rossi, "I'm in the hospital."

Hotch who was standing at head of the bed on Reid's left side, followed quickly with, "Do you remember _why _you are in the hospital?"

Reid looked up at Hotch with a confused expression. His colleagues exchanged concerned glances with each other. Garcia whispered, "Oh my God," almost soundlessly, but Reid heard her and started to feel anxious.

"It's OK, Dr. Reid," the nurse said to her patient patting the blankets over his feet adding, "Confusion and memory issues, are also fairly common after anesthesia and usually short term." She couldn't imagine, however, why his colleagues would _want_ him to ever remember any of what had happened.

Reid, who had never forgotten anything in his entire life, reached up and touched his bandaged, wounded shoulder and the pain that resulted became the trigger that pulled on his memory. He found himself in a flashback of the events that occurred earlier that night. His heart rate soared and he started to hyperventilate as he watched the events unfolding in vivid detail, unchanged from the tragic reality that had occurred and with no way to alter the course.

As he flailed his arms, raising them to the position they had been in as he tried to convince Diane to spare Maeve after he had been shot, the nurse started to ask the others to leave the room, but almost immediately Hotch grabbed Reid's left arm to keep him from tearing the sutures out of his left shoulder and Rossi reached for his right hand. "_Reid_! Reid, listen to my voice," Rossi said rather loudly, but calmly and firmly. And then softer, "It's OK. _It's OK._ You're not there. You're not there."

"Spence, we're all right here with you, in the hospital," she said as she leaned close and rested her hand on his right shoulder. She could feel that cold perspiration had soaked through the back of Reid's hospital gown.

And then as abruptly as he was back in the room with Maeve and her murderer, reliving the worst nightmare-come-true he had ever experienced, he was abruptly back in the hospital room with all of his colleagues standing around him, some still literally holding onto him and all holding him in their hearts.

It was too much for him to bear having just come out of anesthesia and in quite a bit of pain. He started to sob, and not the mostly silent weeping and hiccupping sort of crying, but the heart-wrenching, soul rending, mournful keening over which one has no control.

Hotch and JJ let go of Reid's injured arm and his opposite shoulder respectively and Reid crumpled forward. Rossi wordlessly pulled him into a bear hug. JJ stood back, looked up at the ceiling and bit her lower lip to avoid breaking down.

"I think," the nurse said quietly, "it might be best if there weren't so many of you in the room now. Really, it's only one visitor per patient"

Morgan put his arm around Garcia, who had started to cry openly as soon as she realized that Reid was reliving the incident, and they walked out of the room. Blake, who looked quite stricken as well, followed them.

Hotch, who was only barely keeping his own tears from spilling, turned away from Reid briefly to compose himself and then turned towards the nurse and said to her, "We're _not_ leaving."

The intensity behind Aaron Hotchner's piercing, dark brown eyes led the nurse to make no protest. She did tell them, though, that crying _can_ be a reaction to anesthesia as well, it just almost always only happened to women. Her patient's vital signs were returning to normal, so there was no need to call Dr. Ezzo and no reason to absolutely insist that they go. Promptly after her informative proclamation she left the room to call Dr. Paxton, the psychiatrist, from the nurse's station. She wanted to update him.

As Reid's sobbing subsided into soft shuddering breaths Rossi loosened his embrace and Hotch and JJ helped Reid lean back against the pillows. Rossi stood up to stretch his back and legs and Hotch sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Reid, the nurse may have been right about reacting to anesthesia, but even if she wasn't, it's OK. I want you to remember that," Hotch said.

"Not… likely… I'll forget… anything," Reid managed to get out haltingly as he reached up to wipe his face across the back of his right hand and encountered the IV. JJ found a box of tissues in the room and handed a whole stack of them to Reid.

"No, not likely," Hotch, who had only just noticed the time, said with a sad smile. "I need to go call Beth and Jack, OK?" he asked. Reid nodded.

"I'll be back in a bit too," Rossi said. He wanted to get outside of the building for little fresh air. He needed a break from the intensity.

With Hotch and Rossi gone, that left only JJ in the room with Reid. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked into his hazel eyes. "Do you need anything? A drink of water maybe?" she asked.

He pressed his lips together and shook his head.

"How's your arm?"

"Hurts," he said sleepily.

"Maybe you should get some sleep," she suggested. "It's pretty late."

He was nodding off without realizing it, but as soon as JJ moved to get up from the bed he awakened, startled and eyes wide. "Spence," she whispered, "you need to rest. Close your eyes. Go to sleep. We'll be right here if you need us."

Knowing that he wouldn't be alone he relaxed and succumbed to utter exhaustion. As soon as she was sure he was deeply sound asleep JJ left the room to go find the others and call Will.


End file.
